Swish and Flick
Through dedicated effort on Apple Bloom’s part, they avoided any more angry confrontations. To be fair though she wasn’t the only one of them fighting to get along. They were all fighting to make peace with each other, each in their own way. Diamond Tiara didn’t have anyone she knew from her old school except them three and Silver, and she wasn’t a girl who was happy about being left alone. Apparantly she’d lost her dad at some point, and just hadn’t been quite the same since.
Apple Bloom didn’t think she should be able empathize, as she had lots of family left over, and she never had to deal with the loss of her own parents. It had happened before her time. But it was odd all four of them even Scootaloo just felt that understanding close to their hearts, of losing someone that you love. It must have just been something common to human nature in general, since there was no real connection between any of their losses, other than pure coincidence, but despite no huge calamity happening to all of them at once, they did share that as common ground, for what that’s worth.
Diamond seemed to be in a good mood around them, even though she and Scootaloo butted heads a lot. Really Scoots and Diamond thrived on that kind of conflict. Bloom wouldn’t have been surprised if Scootaloo hadn’t picked that ballet class, just so she could have something weird about herself to defend, instead of just being yet another unremarkable Rainbow Dash fan girl. Diamond and Scootaloo’s bickering was low key for the rest of the lunch today at least, and Sweetie seemed to really appreciate what Diamond Tiara had been studying about beauty and poise.
It was funny really: Sweetie Belle had the look of a Fashionist, but she was all left feet when it came to fabrics and was even shyer than Apple Bloom about performing or putting herself on the spot, so she couldn’t even think about theater or public speaking. It’d took an act of congress to get Sweetie to help with that video they put up on Poundtube, and that hadn’t even been an audience she could see!
Scootaloo had the look of a Jock, but her participation in professional sports was lackluster at best, and her interests changed so much on a daily basis that even having to take one whole half semester class was overwhelming her attention span. So even though the choice of major for Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo should have been obvious, neither of them could make them.
And Apple Bloom... well, she just wasn’t much good at anything. She couldn’t figure what group you’d stuff her in. Ecology maybe, because of her farm duds? Boy, but, those Eco-kids were crazy weird. She asked Sweetie Belle at one point, “Hey, if you were a Fashionist and Scootaloo was an Athlete, then what would ah be?”
Sweetie gave that a good amount of consideration, before saying, “Techie, probably.”
Apple Bloom tried to imagine herself in a labcoat and horn rimmed glasses and failed. “What, really?” she exclaimed in surprise.
Sweetie nodded, “You like machines and you’re really smart. But you’d have to give up what you do with your family to study, and you like exercising too much so you’d be unhappy I think. But just, superficially, I mean.”
“And...” Sweetie added too quietly for Diamond Tiara to hear, “You’d be too busy to be friends with us like Silver Spoon.”
Apple Bloom didn’t really know what to say to that. “T-thanks, Sweetie,” she said at her friend’s surprising perspicacity, going back to eating with those thoughts on her mind. What would she be doing if she wasn’t living on a cattle farm? Was that really what defined her life?
So of course when they finished eating, Apple Bloom’s pants almost fell off again. When she stood up with her tray she had to just sit down again in a hurry. “Uggh, what is wrong with mah belt today?” she said pulling on it fiercely to get it to stay securely on her boyish hips. She stood up again to find Diamond Tiara looking at her critically saying, “Your belt’s broken?”
“Yeah, ah think it’s stretched out or somethin’” Apple Bloom said uncomfortably, “Ah keep havin’ to tighten it just to keep my britches on.”
“It’s ‘cause you’re so tiny, miss boy hips,” Tiara said teasingly. Worse still Scootaloo actually snickered at that. She was trying to hide it, but man could Apple Bloom really blame her? Even Scootaloo had wider hips than Apple Bloom. It was embarassing!
“Ah’ll get a growth spurt soon,” Apple Bloom declared imperiously to Diamond Tiara, “Just you wait and ah’ll be lookin’ down on y’all!”
Later when they were putting their trays away, Diamond actually smiled at Apple Bloom, and said,
“Thanks for... that. You’re a really great person somewhere under that backwoods redneck look you’ve got there.”
“Gee, what a compliment,” Apple Bloom rolled her eyes, milling towards the hallway to get a head start when the bell went off. “Ah don’t make fun of your silly dresses, so what’s wrong with a pair of waders and a work shirt?”
“Well my style is already perfect, so of course you can’t complain,” she said snidely, only half jokingly too. Then she said something a bit uncharacteristic of the rough cut Diamond. “You do pull off the look well though,” she said, “Your shirt would clash horribly, but it contrasts well with your hair, and most kids can’t make the school spirit head boppers look good, but you make them work. They match your skin tone.”
“Wait, what?” Apple Bloom said impatiently as the bell rang, wanting to get onto her next class before she was tardy again. “I ain’t wearin no head boppers.”
“Sure you are,” Diamond Tiara said, leaning close to Apple Bloom and squinting. “Though I can’t see the... wait...”
The ceramics students dropped something in the other room making the distant sound of glass shattering as Diamond jerked back to arm’s length, her composure lost totally in an instant. She stuttered “I–I–I–um– I mean, no of course you aren’t I was just joking because you totally are just fine I’m just seeingnot seeing anything because everything is fine I gotta go, bye!”
And just like that, she was gone.
Apple Bloom massaged her temples. Something wrong with that Diamond girl, if she thought that was what you call a joke. Still Diamond Tiara had seemed genuinely distraught. Apple Bloom wondered if maybe she’d been too friendly to her, or maybe there really was something wrong with her outfit? She got elbowed aside by a hurried upperclassman though, and was already getting pulled into the hallway throng for the between period rush.
Sighing, she shouldered her book bag more firmly, and started shoving her own way through the crowd in different directions than her three friends, who she would never see again until all the way until next lunch period. And now she had to go to that stupid English class. With troubled thoughts, she went to her locker and hastily grabbed her afternoon textbooks, then jogged all the way over to English class, getting in right when the period bell rang.
Of course the teacher was standing there at the chalkboard, looking at Apple Bloom with a disgusted expression. Did she ever adopt a different expression? Certainly not when Apple Bloom was around to disappoint her.
“Sorry, Ms. Harshvoice,” Apple Bloom said almost out of habit by now, sulking her way to her desk. Apple Bloom had picked a desk in the front because she thought it was going to be a good class, but now it was her curse to sit up there and face the constant scrutiny of terror in a purple sportcoat. Normally the teacher didn’t spare her half a glance, rounding up the students who did arrive late and making them stand outside the class like they did something wrong. Today for some reason though, the others got a get-into-jail free card. Snips and Watermelonsomething whose only vice was chronic tardiness made their way to their seats completely unnoticed. Why?
Because Ms. Harshvoice kept on glaring right at Apple Bloom.
“Um... uhm... somethin’ the matter?” Apple Bloom asked nervously as the teacher’s unflinching gaze judged her so very absolute and totally.
“Aside from that atrocious sentence you just uttered?” the teacher said in her heavy round voice, “As a matter of fact, yes there is something that is the matter. That headgear is not appropriate for class. Please remove it so that I may begin without it distracting the other students.”
“What?!” Apple Bloom exclaimed, tugging at her hair protectively, “But mah bow you ain’t never complained about before at all!”
With every word she uttered, you could see Ms. Harshvoice dying a little more inside, and it just wasn’t fair to Apple Bloom. It ain’t fair to get mad at someone for how they talk. Nothing wrong with a manner of speaking! It weren’t her fault she talked like this!
“Your bow is fine,” Ms. Harshvoice enunciated clearly, as if to a young toddler. “While I support your commitment towards the school spirit, please remove your...” she pinched her forehead, biting out the words as if it pained her to do so, “school spirit head ...boppers.”
Apple Bloom began to protest more, then blinked, looking back at Ms. Harshvoice to try and find some hint of insincerity in the teacher’s burnt orange face. There was as much insincerity in that face as there was water in an Arizona desert.
“Ah ain’t wearin’ head boppers,” Apple Bloom repeated, to the second person today who said that.
“As much as I appreciate you finally using the contraction ‘ain’t’ in its proper place, you are wearing head boppers,” the teacher insisted. “Take them off right now, or I will have to send you to the office to have them removed for you.”
A sudden thought made Apple Bloom’s mouth drop open in shock. “Diamond Tiara!” she exclaimed angrily. reaching up above her forehead and rummaging around in her bountiful red bangs. “She musta slipped them on me while I wasn’t lookin’ ahm sorry teach!” Apple Bloom couldn’t find that blue headband though. There wasn’t anything on her head from front to back.
Apple Bloom lowered her hands and folded them on her desk, smiling nervously and saying, “Um... ah cain’t find the headband. May ah be excused to attend to it in the bathroom?”
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Ms. Harshwhinney griped, striding the few paces forward to Apple Bloom’s desk and reaching for her head. With the intention of pulling the hairband out by its most prominent features, she grabbed an ear, and both she and Apple Bloom exclaimed at once,
“Eauuhh!”
The teacher flung her arm back as if burned staggering back a step while Apple Bloom put her hands over her head saying, “What did you do?!” to the teacher frantically.
Ms. Harshvoice had grabbed her ear. Her real ear! That wasn’t a headband! And as soon as Ms. Harshvoice’s fingers touched her ear, Apple Bloom felt it flick back and forth.
“What’s wrong with mah ears?!” she continued to exclaim. Apple Bloom couldn’t find them! There wasn’t anything on the side of her head! She kept feeling higher and higher and there were no ears and then– and then she found her ears.
“What’s going on?” came Snip’s voice behind her. Her ear turned to face the sound!
“That is so very entripping,” an unfamiliar girl’s voice came.
“Nurse!” Ms. Harshvoice said dragging Apple Bloom bodily out of her desk, “Get to the nurse!”
Apple Bloom’s ears weren’t her ears they were these giant furry things under her finger’s touch. She grabbed them to stop the flicking but that was even worse.
“Out!” Ms. Harshvoice said, shoving Apple Bloom out the door, “Get to the nurse! Go straight to the nurse before you–before something!” She turned around then and said, “Everyone please remain calm. Please stay in your seats. We are not going anywhere until she has” and then the door to Apple Bloom’s English class swung closed.
“...until she has returned or a school nurse has delivered a conclusion about our next action in the current situation!” the teacher’s voice continued muffled behind the door. Oh lordy Apple Bloom could hear everything. How had she not noticed this before? In the middle of a period, the halls were empty. That gave Apple Bloom the perfect opportunity to run like the fiery demons of Hell were hot on her heels and breathing down her neck.
Like most things in school, Apple Bloom knew where the nurse’s office was, despite not yet having been there before. She charged in the door with the red circle underneath a white plus sign on it, shouting, “MAH EARS ARE BROKE!”
The nurse behind the desk with her blue curls and far too much makeup on was leaning forward with her hands over her ears, shouting, “DO YOU FEEL ANY PAIN? CAN YA HEAR ME?” That made Apple Bloom’s ears immediately turn down and back and she shrank from the nurse in a fright saying,
“W-w-why are you shouting at me? Mah ears are fine!”
The nurse took her hands away from her ears asking in a more even tone in a very familiar accent, “Then why were you shouting?”
“Because mah ears are br–” Apple Bloom stopped. “Because mah–” Apple Bloom shook with frustration, blushing furiously, “Because I was upset!” she yelped, “Mah ears are... ah can hear just fine, but they’re on top of mah head!”
The nurse took a second look at her, then frowned saying, “Honey ya cain’t get out of class with a pair of fake ears.”
“They ain’t fake!” Apple Bloom said stamping her foot angrily.
“Ah wasn’t born yesterday, hun. Them those school spirit things,” the nurse concluded, sitting back in her chair. “Now get along to class. Ain’t nothing wrong with you.”
Apple Bloom responded by jumping onto the desk.
“Hey!” the nurse shouted in outrage, “What are you doing? You can’t get up here!”
“Can you see a headband in mah hair?” Apple Bloom demanded, sticking her face up to the nurse’s. “Go on, take it off!” she challenged, the tears in her eyes robbing her of any effective intimidation. “They ain’t fake, ah can feel them!”
“Calm down, child!” the nurse harried her, pushing her back off the desk along with several very important papers that will never be mentioned again. “Is this some sort of cry for help?” she asked confusedly, “Are you bein’ bullied? Do you need to see the school psychologist? Because she’s busy with another student right now.”
Meanwhile in the school psychologist’s office, the psychologist was beginning to conclude that after enough cases like these, she would not need to continue dying her hair to appear distinguished. Or, undying it, as such the case may be.
“It’s happening again!” the distraught first year student told her with shaking hands and poorly focused eyes, “The horse people! The mascot is real! But it never happened before! I think I’m going crazy you’ve got to help me! I thought I saw the ears, but I couldn’t have! Because it never happened! Except it did!”
“Please, Miss Tiara,” the gray haired woman said to her as gently as possible, “You’re among friends here. Nobody is judging you. Can you remember when you first started seeing things?”
“Last year,” she replied, then her eyes narrowed again and she exclaimed, “But it couldn’t have been last year! It was when we graduated. It was... it hasn’t happened yet! But it did! But it... it was... earlier today.”
“It sounds like you’ve been suffering from this for a long time,” the psych said in a sympathetic tone.
“I can’t remember...” the student said, looking down and pulling at her already disarrayed hair. She lifted her head up suddenly and said, “But at lunch today! I swear I saw it! My f... my friend had h-h-h–”
Meanwhile, back at the Nurse’s office.
“Why won’t you believe me?” Apple Bloom asked with an uncontrollable quaver in her voice. She wiped at her eyes, feeling her ears go back again without even any sort of shouting going on.
The nurse just looked at her quietly. Apple Bloom felt like she was on the spot. Was Apple Bloom crazy? Were these just head boppers and she was just imagining them? Why did her English teacher react like that though? Did Apple Bloom imagine that too?
“How are you doing that?” the nurse asked her curiously. Apple Bloom gave her a puzzled look.
“Doing what?” she asked, suspicious of the sudden change in topic.
“Are they on a pull string or something?” the nurse said squinting at the top of Apple Bloom’s head. “How are they folding back like that?”
Apple Bloom felt her ears unflatten. For once, the sensation gave her a flutter of hope instead of creeping dread. “They’re not fake,” she said as calmly as she could. “They’re mah real ears. Ah don’t know why they keep moving. That’s why I came here. Something is wrong with my ears.”
“Please,” Apple Bloom continued earnestly, “There’s a whole class waitin’ on me. You gotta find out what this is or they’ll be stuck in there forever!”
“Alright, alright,” the nurse conceded, walking around the desk saying, “C’mere, let me take a look at ya.” Apple Bloom did so, and the nurse crouched down to look closely at the top of her head. Where somehow her ears had gone and mutated or something. Was she some kind of elf or something? Secretly swapped as an infant with her identical twin, to take her place until the fey glamour faded and she was exposed for the changeling monster that she was?
Apple Bloom’s ear twitched again when she felt the nurse’s finger touch it. The nurse lurched back then, falling down on her ass and looking at Apple Bloom, exclaiming, “Holy shit they’re real!” with pure wide eyed astonishment.
“Ah told ya!” Apple Bloom said, “Why are mah ears like this? They were fine this morning!”
“J-j-j-ust, uh,” the nurse climbed to her feet, holding a hand out to Apple Bloom and saying, “F-follow me.”
The nurse’s office had one tiny little examination room with mirror above a sink and swabs and cabinets full of mysterious stuff and human anatomy posters on the wall, as well as a “Don’t forget your flu shot!” poster. “Just wait here,” the nurse said giving Apple Bloom a scared yet apologetic look. “The doctor will uh, see you shortly.”
“There’s a doctor at this school?” Apple Bloom asked before she could run off.
The nurse shook her head, “No there ain’t but, there is one at the clinic!” She smiled awkwardly and said, “It’ll be f—it might take a while. Ah’m sorry.”
Apple Bloom sat down in the little chair they had by the examination table. “Just... just leave me alone,” she said miserably, “I don’t know if this is gonna get any worse though, so please hurry.”
Nodding curtly, the nurse shut the door, and you could hear her footsteps as she ran into the front room. You could hear her fumbling with the telephone, and it was pretty easy to pick out exactly which number she dialed from the dual tones emitting from the speaker. And you could also hear her flustered and barely coherent conversation with the receptionist on the other end, who you could also hear.
Apple Bloom was tired of these ears already.
The nurse left for some reason, she didn’t say, and the resulting silence was enough that Apple Bloom could even hear murmurs of the other classes in progress. Thank goodness her super ears couldn’t pick up enough to discern actual words or she’d start going nuts. As if this situation wasn’t nuts enough already.
She shifted uncomfortably in the lumpy chair, then stood up and paced around the examination room restlessly. She looked at the posters and then the sink, and then a light bulb hit her. A mirror! Apple Bloom shot to the sink, sticking her head forward and looking urgently into the mirror there. What she saw in her reflection was the worried visage of a young girl with custard yellow skin and bright red hair that clustered into bouncy round bangs. And nestled in that hair like they always belonged there were a pair of big prominent conical ears, like big old radar dishes sticking out of her head at a slight angle. It made the lack of ears on the sides of her face look less empty somehow.
But they were undeniably, irrefutably, her ears.
She gently pinched one in between her left thumb and index finger. The ears matched her skin color, but the color in them wasn’t skin. It was a dense short fur, softer than she’d expected. It felt weird pinching her earlobe like this, and she had to struggle to resist the urge to flick it, so she let it go again. Apple Bloom cupped her hands in back of them, feeling how their soft furry texture emerged straight from the top of her head. Curiously she poked a finger inside one, and well... it would have been impossible to hear, if her ear canal wasn’t intact, but the thought that she had holes in her head up there made her wince and pull her finger back.
Apple Bloom looked at them, how they framed her head. They made her face look oddly flat from the side and at an angle, even though a human’s face was supposed to be flat. But looking dead on into the mirror, you wouldn’t have been able to tell if she had a muzzle or not. That angle, it kind of made her look like a...
The last thing Apple Bloom saw of her reflection were her eyes widening with horror, before she tore herself away from the mirror and just went back to pacing around the room. She sat down then and stood up, and sat down again, wiggling until she felt comfortable, staring at the door. She wished she’d brought her book bag. Instead she had to spend the time ruminating—thinking not ruminating, on what might have possibly caused this.
It had to be that strange dream, it had to be. It must have been some alien... thingamagig that really happened, and Apple Bloom and her friends only thought it was a dream. That golden apple thing had to be real, and it had somehow done that, then undone it, then made her think she was sleeping the whole time, then started doing it again.
That made absolutely no sense.
What about her friends? They were right there when that golden bomb went off. But they didn’t transform at all in the dream. It was just Apple Bloom. Stupid little Apple Bloom going and grabbing things she had no idea how safe they were, and no right to be toying with. It was probably just her and not them, but she’d have to tell someone about them too when she could. All she could do now is wait.
The chair was uncomfortable again. Something in it kept poking her in the butt. Then when she shifted so it was over the lip of the seat it kept catching on that lip. Apple Bloom pushed just a bit off the chair, trying to see behind her to find what it was that was catching. It was something above her belt. It felt weird it was...
Oh no.
Doctor Stable was not one to make house calls, but Nurse Snowheart from the high school had never out and run physically into his office and demand that he come with her to aid a student in distress. She seemed reluctant to tell him what was wrong, which couldn’t be a good sign. Still, the way she kept framing it like “Her ears got all big and weird” made some part of him suspect that this was just some kind of sick joke at his expense.
So, cancelling his appointments for the afternoon, some very important ones for that matter like a student who needed their stitches removed, and another student who had broken their arm in football and needed to hear his prognosis on their x-rays (it was a good prognosis), he grabbed his hastily assembled medical bag and hurried out to where the nurse was waiting next to her old beat up convertible. He made sure to inform her of just what she was causing should this not be a very serious affair, and that she should call the emergency room should there be an actual life threatening emergency. As they drove he ran the gamut interrogating her about the real need for this unconventional visit. Had she damaged her ears? Gone deaf without explanation? Heavy fever and vomiting? Dizziness? Lack of coordination?
Finally the nurse just turned to face him at a stoplight and said that she simply could not explain it and that he would have to see for himself. Stable was starting to feel very uncomfortable about this situation. It didn’t appear to be a student in any sort of distress, while still appearing to be a student in distress. His apprehension warred with his curiosity, until finally his collosal sense of practicality stepped in and told them both that he was already in the automobile and it would take longer to return to the hospital than it would to check this out, just to see what was spooking Nurse Snowheart.
Though the nurse seemed terrified by the situation, the doctor couldn’t help but feel elated by it. Some sort of unexplained medical phenomenon, and it didn’t have symptoms of debilitation or pain. And something he could discover! It was with a childlike excitement carefully hidden inside him that he strode through that school’s nurse’s office to crack open the door to the examination room. “May I come in?” he asked congenially.
It was a girl’s voice who answered by asking, “Are you the doc?!” in a very well, distressed tone of voice.
“I’m Doctor Stable,” he announced, opening the door and stepping into the examination room where the red and yellow girl was sitting there uncertainly in the open backed chair. “Nurse Snowheart asked me here to help you. Thank you for waiting. Now, what seems to be the problem?”
She stood up then, and ran over, grabbing him by his shirt and saying, “You gotta help me doc!” She pleaded with her ears flat against her head, “Ah think I’m turnin into a cow!”
As Apple Bloom watched, the doctor at first stared at her blankly. Then his expression broke as a snort of laughter started to well up inside him. So she nipped it in the bud by grabbing his hand, and shoving her head against it. The nurse Snowheart was standing behind him, looking down at her fearfully.
“These. Are. Real!” Apple Bloom exclaimed, trying to make them move, though the one was too squished to flick around.
“Please, girl. Let me–” the doc pulled his hand out of her grasp roughly, saying, “Let me look!” So she crossed her arms and stood in front of him, as the undeniable truth on top of her head was a better argument than any she could make.
“Did you...” he said disbelievingly, “Is this some kind of surgery? How did you–”
“Surgery?!” Apple Bloom exclaimed tilting her head to look up at him. “How could it possibly be surgery?”
“How could it possibly be anything else?!” he exclaimed, making her wince and her ears turn down at his outburst. That made him even more shocked. Apple Bloom backed up with trepidation. She was gonna have to show him... that too.
“It’s because ah ate too much cow meat and now I’m turnin into one!” she said frustratedly, “Maybe it’s divine punishment! Ah don’t know!” Steeling her resolve, Apple Bloom spun around and stuck her butt out at him, pulling her shirt up.
“Young lady!” he shouted in alarm, “What are you– you have a tail.”
“Ah have a tail,” she agreed miserably.
“You have a tail,” he repeated numbly.
Her tail, in fact, was pushing her jeans down embarassingly (literally) and dangling over the edge of her belt. She couldn’t even see it, but she knew from feeling earlier that it was this spindley little thing, very responsive to her fingers, and somewhat ticklish. Just like you’d see coming out behind a cow. She didn’t just stand there with her ass in the air, but turned around and stood up straight, looking at him uncertainly.
“How... long have you had this?” he asked her, adjusting his spectacles and leaning against the sink.
“Today,” she replied.
“Today?!” he shot back.
“Ah had this strange dream in which me and mah friends found an apple, and it turned me into a– like a baby cow or something. But I wasn’t when ah woke up, nor the entire next day. But today I got these in English class!” she pointed at her ears, “And this started growin while I was waiting for you!” she pointed behind her as best as she could. She found herself wanting to wave her tail demonstrably, but she didn’t even know how to move it.
“You can’t just grow a tail in an hour,” he asserted frustratedly. “This makes no sense! This has to be some kind of joke! If you have any shred of decency in you as a human being,” he held up a hand before she could protest, “Not a cow, then you’ll tell me how you managed to pull this prank off, and what is really going on here.”
She just shrugged helplessly, “Ah keep sayin’ it ain’t no joke. Ah don’t know what’s goin’ on. You’re the doctor!”
Doc Stable straightened up and stared at her thoughtfully. He turned and looked back at the nurse. “Have you contacted her family yet?” he said in a neutral voice.
“I went straight for you,” she replied. “Nobody besides us knows about this.”
“And mah English class,” Apple Bloom pointed out helpfully. “And also mah friends, because I started gettin’ ears during lunch. I suppose anyone in the cafeteria coulda seen it.”
“That’s not why I was asking,” Doc Stable told the nurse irritatedly. “I need you to contact her family and ask them if they know anything about this.”
“What would mah folks know that you don’t?” Apple Bloom asked curiously, “They ain’t doctors. We’re cattle ranchers!”
“She has a point,” Nurse Snowheart said with a sickly smile, “Still we should get them over right away so they can... so they can be with her.”
“Firstly this has no basis in medical science or reality” the doctor asserted to both of them, “So I don’t know why you would think that being a doctor would give me some special knowledge about this. What I can do is ask questions, and be very careful about the answers that I collect. Her family is the most likely source I can think of for whatever might be causing... this.”
He then took a double take at Apple Bloom saying, “Wait, did you say they were cattle ranchers?”
“Ah’m Apple Bloom,” she introduced herself. “You know, Apple? As in the only cattle wranglers in town?”
“Alright, please just, wait there and we’ll help you as soon as we can. We need to get your family here so they can help,” the doctor said in a nervous half panicked voice. Apple Bloom frowned, but nodded. She waited in the examination room in that chair her new tail could fit through. It was already several inches long, and little red hairs were sprouting all along it, what she could see of it. It kept swishing back and forth now whether she tried to or not, every time she shifted in her seat.
Apple Bloom listened to the doctor call her grandmother in the other room, got Granny on the cell phone it sounded like. He kept things brief and ambiguous, and told Granny how Apple Bloom was in the nurse’s office and she needed her family to come and see her right away and talk with him about some things.
Granny’s “What?!” was probably loud enough for anyone to hear, not some half cow freak.
Once she hung up on the doctor, which gave them about 5 minutes before a Granny shaped torpedo would make its way across the school to the nurse’s office, he went and dialed another number. Just three letters. Wait, did that mean...
“Hello? Canterlot police?” he said quietly, as if he didn’t want to be heard, “I need you to come to the high school right away. There’s been a case of possible abuse and foul play. No. No I mean I may have evidence of a serial murderer in our town.”
Apple Bloom jumped up too hastily this time, the chair clattering as her very real tail caught on it. She ran to the door yanking it open. Running over to the office room which was also closed she pulled that door open, ran up to the doctor and grabbed his arm as if she could pull him away from the phone she shouted, “Serial murder?!”
“Oh, you heard that did you,” he said biting his lip.
“Every freaking word!” she snapped.
He looked at the open door to the office with consternation, but instead of making a break for it he knelt down, looking at her urgently and said, “Listen, if you are not the first girl they have turned into a—”
Granny burst through the door gasping for breath. “Hold on Apple Bloom!” she shouted, “I’m a comin’!” Then she started to rush over to Apple Bloom, giving the doctor just enough time to drop the phone and move aside, before sweeping her up into a crushing hug. “What they done to ya?!” she exclaimed, “You hurt? You sick? No explosions?”
“Ah’m...fine...Gran...ny...” Granny let go and looked Apple Bloom in the eye with her eyes sagging with concern. Apple Bloom took in a deep breath, then explained, “Ah was havin a dream about lookin’ for a golden apple with mah friends but when we found it it changed me into a cow or somethin and ah woke up two days ago and ah was fine, because it was just a dream and nothin really happened and now at lunch today ah started growing cow ears and now ah got a tail and the dream was real and I’m turnin’ into a cow!”
Granny shot the doctor a suspicious look saying, “What have you got her doped up on, morphine?”
“M– morphine?! Look at her ears!”
“What’s wrong with her ears?!” Granny said irately, gesturing at Apple Bloom, “They look just fine to Sam Hill Betsy Murgatroy child what happened to your ears?!”
“Ah told you Granny, ah’m turnin’ into a cow! Look at them! They’re all coney and furry!”
“Ah wasn’t talkin’ about your silly head boppers Apple Bloom,” the portly lady said squinting at her. “Yer real ears are solid gone! Did ye makeup them over or somethin?”
“Head bo– mah ears are up here Granny. These are mah real ears!” Apple Bloom was getting really frustated at having to prove this to everyone. Did her fur—her skin color really make her ears—those weird cow ears look like the school spirit headband?
“I don’t believe it,” Granny said stubbornly, crossing her arms with difficulty. She’d been trying to lose weight she really had, but with that physique and a diet of meat and butter it wasn’t really feasible for her to be skinny even in her old age.
“Just–” Apple Bloom flattened her ears again, not really keen on people touching them. “Just touch them,” she said anyway, “You’ll see that they’re as real as ah am.”
Granny was one of the few people Apple Bloom could really see eye to eye with. Granny must have gotten smaller in her old age, and plus she was wearing those old fashioned boots that barely had any platform to them. She could still pretty easily reach Apple Bloom’s ears though, and grabbed one of them pulling it like she was going to take it off.
“Ow, Granny!” Apple Bloom pushed her shouting, “Leggo, that hurts!”
Granny let Apple Bloom go and backed up, and, in fact she backed up so much that she ended up falling back into the chair against the wall.
“What on earth is goin’ on?” she said, all warbly.
“I was hoping you could tell us that,” Doc Stable said to Granny. “You manage a cattle ranch, if I recall. Has this ever happened before in your experience?”
“Cattle?” Granny said dumbly, looking all sorts of out of sorts, “I ain’t never seen nothing like this in all mah years! People don’t just change into cows. Least of which is my little granddaughter!”
“Any information you could have at all would help,” Doc Stable pleaded with her, “Has her behavior been strange? Something in her diet? Has anything happened recently?” Apple Bloom opened her mouth to shout about the golden apple again when her ear turned again at the sound of hard footsteps pounding up the hall from the distance but coming closer. It wasn’t break period yet.
“You don’t change into a cow by eatin’ cows neither!” Granny protested. Both turned at a shuffling noise from outside, as the police entered the nurse’s office. Well, entered might have been a bit of an understatement.
About three officers broke in slamming the door open shouting, “Police! Nobody move!” brandishing their firearms like they actually knew how to use them. Unsurprisingly, nobody moved. After a few seconds, they lowered their weapons. The officer in the middle, a tall swarthy man white as the driven snow, said, “Ma’am we received an emergency call to this number, a very serious emergency call,” to the vanilla-pudding colored receptionist, who still had her hands piked up in the air as high as they would go.
“Officers,” Doctor Stable interjected, moving slowly to the doorway, which blocked Apple Bloom’s view of the main reception room. “When I said may have evidence I did not imply there was any imminent danger.”
There was a pause, before one of the officers, the lead one apparantly, said “Stand down, officers,” and the three all holstered their weapons. “I’m sorry doctor,” the lead officer said in a cool yet earnest voice, “It was reported that when your call cut off there was a child screaming. We could only assume the worst.”
Apple Bloom turned beet red. She moaned and hid her face in her hands. What was she even thinking? She’d gone and interrupted a police call.
“I’m terribly sorry for that,” the doctor replied honestly if guardedly, saying, “The scream was nothing other than her protesting me calling you, because she had not considered the full implications of this supernatural phenomenon. I am confident it is very important for you to be involved, and I am grateful you arrived as quickly as you did.”
“Supernatural phenomenon?” the lead officer asked in a half joking tone.
The doctor shook his head slowly, saying “Perhaps it’s best if you see for yourself.”
The examination room was quite crowded with Apple Bloom, three officers and the doctor all crowding in there. She was squirming in her seat, trying to adjust for this new tail which kept on slowly growing longer and the hairs on it longer and thicker. Granny was still sitting out in the waiting room with the receptionist who was looking stressed enough that she’d had to be reminded to put her arms down.
“This is beyond medical science,” the doctor explained. “The girl here is growing a– a tail at an accelerated rate beyond which should be possible. Her ears cannot be surgically attached as they are fully motile and integrated with her skull. I would like to get her to my office immediately to perform x-rays, but first I needed to ensure that it wouldn’t end in a terrible injustice.”
“You see,” Stable said pacing regally, despite only having a few feet to do so, “If some heretofore unexplainable phenomenon is transforming this girl into cattle, her family, or ostensible family, are cattle ranchers. If I hadn’t called you I could be well on my way to becoming a cow myself! They may have been changing people into cows for years with no one the wiser, and I’m sure you know what they do to cows on a cattle ranch besides milk them? Thus the urgency of a police call!”
Apple Bloom was growing more and more incensed as the doctor spoke, both incensed and terrified as his words made entirely too much sense. “Yer– you cain’t think mah granny did this! She cain’t! She’d never do that to anyone! You’re wrong! Y-you don’t even know the Apples! Mah family is everything t-that is kind and good!”
“You’re absolutely right,” the doctor said staring down the little girl. “Your family has not done this to you, nor can they do it to others, and I’m proving that because if my hypothesis was correct then with the police involved there is no way such a thing could continue in secret.”
“He’s exonerating them,” the lead officer said distantly, still staring at Apple Bloom in shock, “That means he called us here to prove that they’re innocent.”
“Oh! Uh,” Apple Bloom blushed again and put her hands back in her lap, “Well, that’s right okay then.”
In the silence that followed there was the sound of a cell phone in the other room. One of the rear officers whirled, uttering “Hey! Who are you calling?!” in a ...very similar voice to the lead officer.
“Mah granddaughter,” Granny Smith’s voice came in full on defiance, “An’ I already called mah grandson so don’t make a fuss about it.”
“Please don’t get any other people involved in this ma’am,” the third officer said in a chastising tone. She walked over to Granny saying, “I’m going to have to confiscate that cell phone.”
“Well here you go,” Granny said adding angrily, “Because I ain’t got no more family to call!”
They only had to wait a minute or so, since both Big Macintosh and Applejack attended the high school. The police had moved out to the waiting room, the school nurse retreating to hide in the side office while the doctor remained to examine Apple Bloom as best as he could with limited facilities. The first thing he did was measure her tail, at 6 inches now, so he could get an exact measurement later. The ratty, fleshy part of it was entirely covered from butt to tip in bright red hair now. Before he could test more, the others arrived.
When her brother and sister arrived, Applejack saying, “Granny? What’s this about? Why are there cops here? Is Apple Bloom in trouble?” and Big Mac saying well, not much at all, Doctor Stable walked out to the waiting room to address them and Apple Bloom crept to the door of the examination room, too afraid to show herself to them, just peering out into the waiting room fearfully.
“Apple Bloom’s siblings, I presume?” the doctor said to the strapping young man in a red plaid shirt darker than his pale red skin with a good sturdy pair of jeans like Apple Bloom’s but longer and looser going all the way over his boots. Apple Bloom had her own jeans cinched way up trying to keep this tail in line without losing them entirely, and her shirt was hanging loosely over her shoulders.
Applejack would have worn jeans but well, school dress code for upper division students was a lot stricter, so she had a plain skirt fashioned from... an old pair of jeans, a plain white shirt rolled up above the elbows and a green scarf matching her eyes, not to mention her ubiquitous hat made of the same sturdy cow leather as her apple decorated boots.
“Eyup,” Mac said.
The doctor looked at him expectantly, then adjusted his eyeglasses and continued, “I will make this brief ma’am, because I would like to get Apple Bloom to my office to perform a full examination. Your sister appears to be magically transforming into a cow.”
“Heh heh heh,” Applejack chuckled casually.
The doctor didn’t smile.
“Yer jokin’ right?” she asked him, with a raised eyebrow.
“Only insofar as all of existence appears to be a joke,” he offered snidely. At her uncomprehending look he added, “No. I’m not joking.”
“Apple Bloom!” Granny hollered, “Git over here so we can see you!”
Apple Bloom gulped, and walked around the edge of the door, coming into the waiting room and approaching her sister with trepidation. She felt so insignificant and small with all eyes on her, as if the increasingly shocked gaze of her brother and sister would drive her right into the ground.
“...what?” Big Macintosh asked.
“Ah’m sorry,” Apple Bloom said sadly, “Ah just don’t know.”
“Apple Bloom, your ears!” Applejack said in alarm, “I–is that a tail??”
“Ah don’t kn—” Apple Bloom couldn’t say she didn’t know; it was so obvious. It just... moved. She couldn’t help but curl it around her side fearfully, as ineffectual and inexplicable as that was. How could she even move it at all? The creepy chills she was getting, from strange muscles moving in her entirely-too-long spine, just made it tighten against her.
“...Yeah,” admitted Apple Bloom, just feeling absolutely forlorn.
“How did this happen?” Applejack gasped, going on her knee to look at her sister.
“Ah had a dream,” Apple Bloom explained worriedly, “Ah thought it was a dream ah mean. About a golden apple! And ah turned into... this, but all the way. I thought it was a dream, but then today I started turning into a cow, for real!”
At Apple Bloom’s earnest entreaty, Applejack’s look of horror flashed with surprise, then immediately fell to a deadpan. She squinted at Apple Bloom, leaned over to look behind her, looked at Apple Bloom’s ears, looked her in the face and said
“Apple Bloom, you ain’t changing into a cow.”
“You don’t believe me?” Apple Bloom exclaimed, backing up a step from her sister. “You?? Buh. But, ah got this!” she grabbed her own tail, “And these!” she pointed up at her head, with her other hand. “How can you not believe me?” she said in utter exasperation. “You think they’re fake too?? Ah swear they’re real! Go on and touch—”
“Apple Bloom!” Applejack shouted at her admonishingly, making Apple Bloom clam right up. Applejack sighed, and rubbed her forehead, then said to Apple Bloom, “Now ah didn’t mean it that way. But ain’t you ever looked at a cow’s ear before?”
Apple Bloom just looked at her blankly. “What about a cow’s ear?”
“Cow ears have a corner to ‘em, like big kites,” Applejack explained, “They ain’t all concial and round like that. And you call that a cow tail? It’s got hair all over it!”
“S-so?” Apple Bloom mumbled in utter confusion.
“Cows only have long hair on the tip of their tails,” Applejack said, with a note of irony in her voice. “Ah bet next you’re gonna tell me you got four nipples?”
“Applejack!” Apple Bloom protested blushing embarassedly. “Ah don’t—I never even— then, what am I turning into?”
Applejack shook her head, saying, “Ah’m sorry sis, I just don’t know. It ain’t a cow though. Some kinda cat, maybe?”
Apple Bloom shook her head, “No I didn’t have paws ah mean– in the dream. Ah thought they were cow hooves, but... but you’re right!” Apple Bloom just clenched her fists and stomped a foot, shouting at no one in particular, “You’re right because none of this is making any sense!”
Big Macintosh spoke up thoughtfully, “Wouldn’t a cat mean she had six—” but Applejack waved a hand frantically to shush him before he finished his sentence.
“If I might interject,” the doctor said, “I’m Doctor Stable, and I’m overseeing your sister’s... condition. I need to know if either of you have ever seen anything like this before. If it’s a family secret, there’s no reason to keep it, as it’s certainly secret no more. I can swear confidentiality outside of this room, but Apple Bloom’s English class can’t be expected to do the same.”
“Nope,” Big Mac said confidently, crossing his arms, and frowning with confused frustration looking at Apple Bloom.
“It sure would be a doozy of a family secret, if it was!” Applejack declared, staring at Apple Bloom hand to hip, “But it ain’t. Ah ain’t never in mah life...”
She trailed off to silence then, and frowned. “Ah haven’t seen uh...” she tried again, not finishing her sentence, a distant look in her eyes.
Applejack shook her head, “Ah cain’t say ah ain’t never seen anything like this before, but I sure don’t recall doing so. It uh... it sounds familiar?” she shrugged.
“You couldn’t have forgotten something like this!” the doctor said aghast.
“Yes ah did!” Applejack shot back, pausing again and saying, “Ah mean, ah don’t remember, so ah must have forgot. If it happened before, that is.”
“Any information at all would be most helpful, Miss Apple,” the lead officer said with a notepad in hand. “Has anyone told you to forget about it, or threatened you or your family?”
“What?! No!” Applejack snapped at him, “Nopo–no body ever threatened mah... I mean, ah don’t... ah don’t remember if anybody ever did.” She put her fingers to her temples, saying, “This is so weird.”
“If you’d like to answer from the safety of the station, we can–”
“It ain’t a safety thing, ah just don’t remember!” Applejack fumed, “Whatever danger there was we’re all safe now we’re–” she got that distant look again, and this time it was a look of relief, like an old pain lifted from her eyes, eyes that shone with the sadness of unimaginable loss.
“We’re all safe now,” she repeated softly, like she couldn’t even believe it.
“I can’t promise a full examination would reveal anything more,” the doctor said behind Apple Bloom, “But can we please take this to my office? I would like to learn as much about this as possible, and I fear we’re running out of time!”
“Out of time??” Apple Bloom asked spinning to look up at him fearfully. “What do you mean?”
His eyes softened as he said to her, “My dear girl, haven’t you noticed you’ve been getting smaller?”
Apple Bloom’s heart stopped right in her throat. She looked at Granny standing there looking at her comfortingly. She looked up at Granny standing there looking at her comfortingly. “Oh for Pete’s sake!” she cried her eyes burning with tears of frustration.
“We’re comin’ with,” Applejack said tensely to the doctor while Apple Bloom stomped out her frustrations.
“Applejack?” Apple Bloom asked her warily, “But what about your schooling?”
“School can wait, Apple Bloom,” Applejack said to her, “You need your family with you, right now.”
Apple Bloom looked at her fitfully, then just whimpered and hugged her tight around the waist, because that’s as high as Apple Bloom could reach now.
“My card,” the doctor said handing it to Granny. “Officers?” he asked casually behind him.
“I think we have enough for a s-statement,” the lead officer said uncertainly. “The crisis has passed, and nothing unlawful seems to be happening here. We’ll start an investigation, but you can probably imagine that we won’t uncover much about something like this. Please don’t hesitate to call us if you are ever in danger though.”
He paused before leading his small entourage out of the office, saying, “We’re also going to have to pay you a visit later, just to make sure nothing else went wrong, so be ready for that.”
“You need our address?” Granny piped up.
He laughed at that. “You’re the Apples! Know any other cattle ranches around here? Oh, but that reminds me.” He turned to one of his inferior officers and said, “Officer Heartstrings, her cell phone.”
The blue and pink haired officer got a guilty look and fumbled it out, handing it to Granny with a whispered apology. The police made tracks then, and Doctor Stable was determined that the rest of them would too. The doctor hurried them all out, and as fast as she could Apple Bloom was headed towards his office.
Why Equestria Girls? Why the first movie? Why brain, whyyyyy? 
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Interesting read so far.
Noticed something odd though:
Seems like some notes accidentally got included in the story.
--Spade
For shame, AB, not knowing what a cow's tail looks like.
5599267 Even with the notes i still can't tell who half these people are
Fashionista, perhaps?
The tail would be rooted in the coccyx. Unless her pants were drooping so low her buttcrack was starting to show, her belt would not be under her tail.
Very smooth, Big Mac.
Considering this, it seems like she knows something. Considering future chapters It is quite the opposite. Can you please edit, to where it does not seem like Applejack knows anything. I assume when you wrote this chapter, you thought you were going to write the rest of the story were Applejack, and quite possibly the rest of the element bearers knew something, but changed tracks completely, and forgot to edit this chapter, or the opposite, and forgot completely, causing you to change tracks, because you forgot the track you were going to go down.